Tag: sea level

Waking the Giant

It’s only if we fail to grasp the enormity of the threatened impacts of climate change on the global environment that we can scoff at the notion that even volcanic eruptions and earthquakes may be triggered as a consequence of our continuing to burn fossil fuels. Not that it’s an easy consequence to appreciate, but vulcanologist Bill McGuire’s latest book Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes explains it with patient clarity. His book is a fascinating read in its discussion of the past and an alarming one in its analysis of future likelihoods.

The book begins with a straightforward and sobering view of the catastrophe which looms if we continue to fail to act on emissions. The signs of climate change are everywhere apparent and the prospects for the future are bleak. McGuire acknowledges the difficulties of precise prediction of what that future might hold 50 or 100 years from now and suggests that looking back on the past may be the best way to gauge what lies ahead. The main focus of his book is on ways in which Earth’s crust has responded to dramatically changing climates, but he also considers, further back, times of high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide as possible pointers to what today’s increased greenhouse gases might forebode.

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You’ll see with your own eyes

An interesting piece in the Huffington Post recently reported Mohamed Nasheed, former President of the Maldives, warning the United States: “You can’t pick and choose on science.” The Maldives is one of the most threatened nations in the world from the sea level rise accompanying global warming. While he was President, Nasheed worked to make the country carbon-neutral, as reported on Hot Topic a couple of years ago. That won’t save the Maldives, of course, but it will at least show willing to do what other much larger nations must do to keep climate change within manageable limits. With a population of 300,000-plus, he said his country needs to complete around 200 projects to reach that goal, a process he believes would take about 10 years.

He acknowledges the United States has a bigger challenge, but they need to face up to it.

“It’s going to be difficult for the U.S. to be a world leader unless they themselves embrace it.”

The population of the Maldives see all too clearly the effects of climate change, but Nasheed acknowledges that Americans may need the evidence of their own eyes. They’ll be getting it:

“You will probably see many aberrations in climate patterns. You’ll have to see that and you’ll have to experience that for you to take this thing seriously.”

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Another Antarctic ice shelf at risk of melt

In the last episode of the Climate Show Gareth drew attention (at 13:40)  to two recent papers suggesting that the Weddell Sea area of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be more vulnerable to warming than previously realised. One paper, published in Nature Geoscience, recorded that radar mapping has uncovered a deep sub-glacial basin close to the edge of the ice sheet at the head of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf. The basin measures 100 by 200 km and is well below sea level, nearly 2km deep in places. The ice sheet, currently grounded above the deep basin, may be more unstable than previously thought and could quickly undergo ice loss.

In a related paper, published in Nature, models reveal that the Weddell Sea region may experience warmer ocean conditions at the end of the 21st century, which could provide the trigger for ice sheet change. Professor Martin Siegert of the University of Edinburgh, who led the project, said:

“This is a significant discovery in a region of Antarctica that at present we know little about. The area is on the brink of change, but it is impossible to predict what the impact of this change might be without further work enabling better understanding of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behaves.”

I’ve been reading an interesting collection of expert opinion on the second paper, made available by the New Zealand Science Media Centre (SMC) ; it was gathered by the Canadian SMC.  The seven experts who commented all thought the paper worthy of respect, and together provided a sense of the breadth and liveliness of scientific interest in the behaviour of the ice shelves.  I thought Hot Topic readers might be interested to get the flavour of the comments.

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Bangladesh: on the front line

The Guardian’s environmental editor John Vidal is a journalist who takes opportunities to report the adverse effects of climate change already being experienced by some of the world’s poorer populations. In earlier posts I’ve drawn attention to pieces he’s written about Peru and some of the countries of Africa.  This week he tells of the problems confronting villagers in Bangladesh. Coastal villages face enormous challenges from increased flooding, erosion and salt-water intrusion and the local communities are tackling them with vigour. Vidal writes of Rebecca Sultan  of the village of Gazipara which suffered enormous damage from two super-cyclones in recent years:

Sultan and 30 other women have raised their small houses and toilets several feet up on to earth plinths. Others are growing more salt-tolerant crops and fruit trees, and most families are trying different ways to grow vegetables. “We know we must live with climate change and are trying to adapt,” said Sultan.

Elsewhere in Bangladesh, hundreds of communities are strengthening embankments, planting protective shelter belts, digging new ponds and wells and collecting fresh water. Some want to build bunkers to store their valuables, others want cyclone shelters.

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NZ govt dumps national environmental standard for sea level rise

The New Zealand government has ordered officials at the Ministry of Environment to stop work on the development of a national environmental standard (NES) on sea level rise, enquiries by the Science Media Centre have revealed. Lack of an NES for future sea level increases will force each local authority to make up its own mind about how much to allow for ocean encroachment. A ministry spokesman told the SMC:

At this stage there are no plans to progress the proposed NES. The Minister for the Environment has made it clear that current guidance provides local government with both the information and the flexibility to plan locally for rises in sea levels.

An NES on sea level rise would have simplified sea level planning for local authorities, who currently may choose to rely on “guidance” provided by the ministry, based on work by NIWA. This currently suggests that authorities should allow for 0.5 m rise by the 2090s, and that they should consider the impacts of a 0.8 m rise in that time frame.

There are two major problems here: the current guidance numbers, first published in 2009, are increasingly out of line with the latest research, and the lack of a national standard means that climate sceptics can waste time and ratepayer money by forcing planning authorities to adjudicate on their minority views.

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